Media Coverage of 3M™ Bair Hugger™ Therapy
Law360: 3M Beats Surgical Blanket Infection Claims At Mo. Jury Trial
A Missouri state jury on Thursday rejected a woman's personal injury claims in a suit alleging that she developed a joint infection because she used a 3M Co. surgical blanket during a 2016 operation.
The jury rejected three personal injury claims by Katherine O'Haver, according to a verdict form provided by a 3M spokesperson. O'Haver alleged that after a Missouri hospital used 3M's Bair Hugger Forced Air Warming System during her left total knee arthroplasty surgery, contaminants entered her wound and caused a deep joint infection.
Read the full story here.
Court of Appeals affirms jury verdict for 3M, reverses summary judgment in pending federal cases
On August 17, 2021, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a 2018 jury verdict in favor of 3M in Gareis – the only case involving the 3M™ Bair Hugger™ system that has gone to trial. As the Court of Appeals noted: “The jury returned a special verdict for 3M, finding that the Gareises failed to prove both that the Bair Hugger was defectively designed and that the Bair Hugger caused Louis Gareis’s PJI [periprosthetic joint infection].”
This ruling follows yesterday’s Court of Appeals’ procedural order reversing the Minnesota federal court’s dismissal of the other federal cases. In that ruling, the Court of Appeals acknowledged “weaknesses” in plaintiffs’ experts’ arguments, but held that it was wrong for the lower court to exclude them across-the-board under the Court’s permissive standard for admitting expert opinions. In Gareis, the jury heard the plaintiffs’ experts’ testimony and rejected it.
Scientific research supports the conclusion that the Bair Hugger system helps patients by maintaining normothermia, which is shown to provide valuable benefits, including reducing the risk of surgical site infections, reduced mortality, fewer post-operative heart attacks, reduced blood loss and faster recovery times. In 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration sent a letter to health care providers recommending that they use patient warming devices for surgical procedures when clinically warranted. The FDA’s recommendation includes forced-air warming devices such as the Bair Hugger system.
The Bair Hugger warming system, which is used to warm patients before, during and after surgery, has been safely used more than 300 million times in the past 30 years. It continues to be used thousands of times each day in medical facilities worldwide.
MassDevice: Judge tosses 5,000 warming-device lawsuits filed against 3M
A federal judge has dismissed more than 5,000 lawsuits filed against 3M(NYSE:MMM) over its BairHugger patient warming system.
The decision follows six years of litigation over claims that the warming system was responsible for infections suffered by patients during surgery. The lawsuits were consolidated in a multidistrict litigation in federal court in Minnesota. In her order, U.S. District Court Judge Joan Ericksen rejected four of the plaintiffs’ expert witnesses and granted Maplewood, Minn.-based 3M summary judgment in all of the cases. Ericksen’s order does not dismiss two similar cases filed in state courts in Missouri and Texas.
Read the full story here.
Minneapolis Star Tribune: Jury sides with 3M in trial over patient-warming device
Outcome could affect thousands of other cases that involve the device.
In a significant legal victory for 3M Co., federal jurors in Minneapolis decided Wednesday that a South Carolina man did not convincingly show that a defective patient-warming device caused a surgical infection he suffered about eight years ago.
Read the full story here.
Minneapolis Star Tribune: Ramsey County Court dismisses all lawsuits filed in Minn. state court
A Ramsey County District Court issued a ruling that dismisses 61 lawsuits filed by Minnesota residents against 3M. The court stated: “There is no generally accepted scientific evidence – and plaintiffs offer none – that the risk of infection associated with FAWS (forced-air warming systems) is greater than that associated with patients who are no warmed during surgery,’’ the judge wrote.
The ruling did not directly affect the federal litigation, where more than 4,000 lawsuits have been filed. But the federal claims closely mirror the Minnesota state lawsuits, using many of the same expert witnesses and published studies.
Read the full story here.
3M again named among world’s most ethical companies
For the fourth consecutive year, 3M has been recognized globally for its ethics and integrity in doing business.
The announcement can be found here.
The Ethisphere Institute, which assesses companies on a variety of factors, scored 3M at the top of the list on citizenship, corporate responsibility, ethics and compliance.
“At 3M, it's not enough to just win in business - it matters how you do it," said Kristen Ludgate, 3M's vice president of Associate General Counsel and chief compliance officer. "Customers want to do business with companies they can trust, and achieving that trust requires the help of all employees. I'm proud to say our people live 3M's Code of Conduct every day by making ethical decisions and speaking up if they aren't sure what to do."
In this story. Forbes magazine listed the companies ranked by the Ethisphere Institute and outlined the criteria for making the list.
Surgical Products Magazine: Arguing In Favor Of Forced-Air Warming:
Pushing Back Against Claims To The Contrary, 3M Says The Bair Hugger System Is Safe And Effective
Forced-air warming (FAW) is a commonly employed method for keeping patients safe from body temperature drops that occur when they’re anesthetized during surgery. Devices such as the Bair Hugger System, manufactured by 3M, are commonplace in hospitals, employed on a daily basis to aid in vital patient temperature management.
In recent years, the Bair Hugger and similar devices have come under criticism from those who maintain the moving air can contribute to a higher risk of surgical site infections. Perhaps by no coincidence, some of those criticisms have been leveled by manufacturers offering an alternative to forced-air warming systems.
To get the perspective of strong advocates on the safety and value of forced-air warming devices, Surgical Products interviewed Al Van Duren, the scientific affairs director of the infection prevention division of 3M.
Los Angeles Times: 3M Bair Hugger warming system used in trauma ward for U.S. soldiers in Iraq
BAGHDAD — For all their horror, wars are learning laboratories for trauma medicine. The knowledge that U.S. military doctors have gained in Iraq is helping them save the lives of more combat wounded than ever before.
A critically injured Army sergeant who arrived recently at Ibn Sina Hospital in Baghdad's Green Zone was a case in point. A sniper's bullet had entered his back and clipped off the side wall of a vein just above the liver that returns blood from the lower body to the heart. Had he arrived at virtually any other hospital in the world, the sergeant probably would have bled to death.
But Army Col. Richard Briggs, a veteran of several wars, had the combat zone experience and the state-of-the-art tools to stabilize the patient after a two-hour operation.
Continue reading here.
ABC News: 3M Bair Hugger warming system helps save toddler
She wasn’t breathing, her heart wasn’t beating and her mother said she was “frozen stiff” when she found her lying facedown in the snow.
On a frigid Canadian night, 13-month-old Erika wandered outdoors in nothing but a diaper and T-shirt. But despite the little girl’s exposure to subzero temperatures, plastic surgeon Dr. Gary Lobay says “she almost certainly will walk again.”
Erika had been sleeping in a bed with her mother and a 3-year-old sister at a family friend’s house. The 25-pound toddler apparently got out of bed without waking anyone, opened a back door that had been left unlatched, and walked out into the snowy, frigid night.
It wasn’t until 3 a.m. that Erika’s mother, Leyla Nordby, discovered her daughter. “I just saw something lying in the snow. And I ran to the snow and I saw Erika on her belly. I picked her up. She was frozen. I ran in the house. I wrapped her in a blanket,” Nordby said.
Continue reading here.
WBUR Boston: 3M Bair Hugger warming system warms runners at Boston Marathon
BOSTON Lauri Perry, of Austin, Texas, is used to getting really hot when she runs. She thought she was being cautious ahead of Monday’s Boston Marathon, when she added a layer over her running top.
“I started out with something on and I threw it away at mile six because it was warmer. Then the rain started at about mile 10 or so, and then the wind got worse,” Perry said, her voice trailing off.
By the time Perry crossed the finish line on Boylston Street she was soaking wet, numb, blue and shaking.
“Uncontrollable shaking,” Perry repeated with emphasis. “I couldn’t even hold my drink because it was splashing out.”
Lauri Perry, of Austin, Texas, went into the medical tent to warm up after finishing the Boston Marathon Monday. (Martha Bebinger/WBUR)
Perry has run the Boston Marathon five times and notes with some pride that she has never needed medical assistance after the race. But Monday, when a member of the medical team asked if she wanted to step inside the big white tent, she gave in.
Continue reading here.
The Gleaner: Shaggy Foundation donates 3M Bair Hugger warming systems, medical equipment
Raising the temperature in the operating room to prevent hypothermia in burn patients has been a common practice for many years at Loyola University Health System in Maywood, Ill. But Sharon Valtman, BSN, RN, CNOR, a team leader in the operating room for 21 years, wondered if more could be done.
So last year she suggested to Richard Gamelli, MD, FACS, medical director of the hospitals burn unit, that burn patients be warmed an hour or more before scheduled surgery, using a device formerly used only in the operating room. Called the Bair Hugger, the device carries warm air through a hose to a blanket draped over the patient.
Gamelli agreed and asked Julie Liberio, MSN, RN, staff nurse and clinical educator, to create a pre-operative protocol for burn patients.
Liberio spoke with Valtman and established the protocol in March 2013 that all patients in the burn unit undergoing surgery be pre-warmed with the Bair Hugger.
Continue reading here.
Nurse.com: Before surgery, 3M Bair Hugger warming system preps patients to prevent hypothermia
Raising the temperature in the operating room to prevent hypothermia in burn patients has been a common practice for many years at Loyola University Health System in Maywood, Ill. But Sharon Valtman, BSN, RN, CNOR, a team leader in the operating room for 21 years, wondered if more could be done.
So last year she suggested to Richard Gamelli, MD, FACS, medical director of the hospitals burn unit, that burn patients be warmed an hour or more before scheduled surgery, using a device formerly used only in the operating room. Called the Bair Hugger, the device carries warm air through a hose to a blanket draped over the patient.
Gamelli agreed and asked Julie Liberio, MSN, RN, staff nurse and clinical educator, to create a pre-operative protocol for burn patients.
Liberio spoke with Valtman and established the protocol in March 2013 that all patients in the burn unit undergoing surgery be pre-warmed with the Bair Hugger.
Continue reading here.
Topeka Capitol Journal: Man, 80, warmed by 3M Bair Hugger warming system after wreck in freezing water
Fergel said the officers after helping him out of the car had “a terrible time” getting him up the creek bank because it was so tall and steep, and conditions were so slick.
He said that by the time he was loaded into a waiting ambulance ambulance, “I was freezing really bad.”
Fergel said it felt good when rescue workers warmed him up using a Bair Hugger warming unit, which remained “turned on for a long time.”
He said he suffered no broken bones, though he could still feel pain Tuesday to his sternum. Fergel said that may have been caused by his car’s airbag, though he wasn’t sure if that activated during the crash.
Eureka Journal: 3M Bair Hugger warming system used to treat hypothermic man after car accident
Since he had been warmed up a little during the ambulance ride, his core temperature was likely down in the 70s when emergency workers and local farmer Jeff Shady first pulled him out of the creek, according to Harman.
They used a range of tools to rapidly increase his body temperature, including injecting warm fluid directly into his veins and wrapping him in an inflatable blanket called a Bair Hugger that surrounded him with heated air.
“It’s pretty unusual to see someone come in on death’s door that we can save,” Harman said. “Everything went about as well as it possibly could.”
Szalat arranged a meeting Sept. 21 at Jones Regional Medical Center to say “thanks” to the emergency workers, doctors and nurses who saved him and to tell his story.
“They really did a tremendous job,” he said. “I’m standing here because of them.”
Continue reading here.